By LAURA BROOKHART / Community Columnist

“Many people think a literary magazine is just binding a bunch of students’ writing together, but it’s much more than that,” said Eureka Editor Maddie Crain. “Submissions from students were solicited throughout the school. Each student put a lot of effort into the pieces they submitted. Submitting work for a publication can be hard, because the writings may be extremely personal.

“We had study halls where we would do nothing but read, edit and comment on everything from short stories to photographs that were up for entry. For a first-year publication, we were a great team. Mrs. Jennifer Culver, the literary magazine sponsor, was amazing at organizing events for funding.”

The biggest fundraiser was “Unleashed,” an artsy talent show, and a series of bake sales were held throughout the year.

“A huge thank you to Mrs. Culver for her hours of work to make this happen,” Crain said. “Her drive to have the magazine succeed spectacularly kept us blazing, especially through rough patches.”

Teacher Jennifer Culver was involved in literary magazines in high school at CCPAC in Montgomery (currently B.T.W.) and while attending Auburn University.

“As a fan of ancestry research,” she said, “the Eureka mine that was here before the school intrigued me. I found photos of the mine online and shared them with my literary magazine students when we were trying to come up with a good name for the magazine. We kept whittling our list of names down, but those related to the coal mine remained.”

“We wanted to show our respect to those who came before us. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Eureka also means ‘I found it!’ in Greek.

“As we read student entries, we would know if we ‘found it’ or not. There are so many talented students here at HHS. I feel honored to be the sponsor of this group of students and look forward to many more years here.”

­“Our magazine looks beautiful,” Crain said. “Many students and teachers have expressed pleasant surprise about how professional it looks; people don’t expect that in a first-year literary magazine, so we definitely hit the ground running.”